James Chapman, the former pol-ed, turned SpAd turned lobbyist putting the potti into Bell Pottinger, claims that the Tories will never win an election again and that Cabinet ministers sympathise with setting up a new centre party, “the Democrats”. Chappers sounding crackers…

Nick Robinson’s comment in the Radio Times that “the referendum is over. The duty we broadcasters had to ‘broadly balance’ the views of the two sides is at an end” revealed much about the Today programme’s attitude to covering Brexit. Take a look at Mishal Husain’s line of questioning during her interview with Sadiq Khan this morning. This was her cringingly deferential first question:

“You’ve talked at length about how concerned you are to protect London as a global financial centre after Brexit. How much assurance have you been given, and what could the government say that might stop jobs moving out of London in a way that we’re already seeing, from banks, from people like Goldman Sachs, Lloyd’s of London is opening up a Brussels office. The movement is already happening.”

Completely softball, no scrutiny of Khan’s position, simply inviting him to speak without challenge. Husain also repeats the Remain spin about Lloyd’s (who actually say London will remain their major financial sector). Her final statement that “the movement is already happening” is overt Remain topspin to the point of being untrue.

Husain’s next question simply invited Khan to explain his new “flexible immigration” policy, again with no scrutiny. The job of interviewers is to probe, scrutinise and hold politicians to account, not repeat their spin and invite them to talk about how brilliant they are…

Guido enjoyed listening to three home-owning multi-millionairess Polly Toynbee rail against inequality and demand a US-style property tax this morning. Six-figure salaried Polly also wants a new levy on “the wealth of the very old, very rich to pay for a care system”. Wealthy socialists are of course free to voluntarily pay more tax if they feel so strongly about it. Bad news for the kids’ inheritance if mum’s assets are whacked with new taxes, though at least she sent two of them to private school so they can still check their privilege. The Italian property transfer tax means selling her Umbria villa will have stung too…

Maggie Thatcher will top the Radio 4 Woman’s Hour Power List today, a roll of honour that “celebrates the seven women who’ve made the biggest impact on women’s lives over the past seven decades”. Awkward for Auntie, who broke its own golden rule of news writing – always put the most important line first – to bury Thatcher’s victory in the fourth paragraph of an online piece. Instead they led with Bridget Jones, who came sixth out of seven on the list. Meanwhile, from The Guardian:

One panel member, Ayesha Hazarika, a former adviser to the Labour MP Harriet Harman, said she felt “uncomfortable” with the choice of Thatcher, but said the list was about celebrating impact “both positive and negative”.

Quentin Letts has really upset the Climate Alarmism lobby, chief among them Dick Black, the former BBC science and environment correspondent who now works for the grandly styled Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit – a propaganda website funded by rich Green philanthropists. According to Dick Black’s inevitable “why-oh-why” Guardian article, Quentin’s worst crime was laughing at the Met Office in breach of BBC guidelines…

Quentin’s crime was exacerbated because it was a programme he made for BBC Radio 4, “What’s the point of the… Met Office?“ which gently criticised the Met Office for lobbying MPs on Climate Change. The twitter lynch mob seems to have been led by Roger Harrabin, Dick Black’s successor as the BBC’s climate alarm correspondent.

As a result of Harrabin and friends causing a stink, there will now be an internal BBC “Feedback” inquest into Quentin’s programme. Quentin is away on holiday, so sadly can not take part, but his cardinal sin appears to have been failing to show proper belief in Climate Change. One of the voices he used was Piers Corbyn (brother of Jeremy), who is sceptical about the outlandish claims of the “we’re all going to die” lobby. Others were Peter Lilley and Graham Stringer. Guido suspects the Feedback process will be like a show trial from the Maoist China days but all this kerfuffle will only serve to highlight that the Met Office has been getting distinctly political, lobbying MPs and pushing the Climate Change orthodoxy. This may catch the eye of the minister responsibe for the Met Office and its fat-cat executives – Sajid Javid. Should Saj not now look at the future of the Met Office and see if its budgets can be trimmed so that it returns to the core mission of predicting the weather rather than political lobbying?